American Athletic Conference Unveils New Logo

The league that will be transformed from the Big East Conference to the American Athletic Conference has a visual identity.

The league's long-awaited logo was unveiled Thursday and the graphic was hardly a surprise — a blue A highlighted with a red star in the middle, a symbol to match the league's patriotic name. The league's horizontal mark features the word "American" in blue lettering, with a red star dotted over the "i" and the words "Athletic Conference" in a smaller font below.

The design came from conference marketing consultant LeslieAnne Wade and MadCreek Advertising in Upper Montclair, N.J. The logo was shown to members at last week's spring meetings in Florida and the response was positive.

"It's a very important step and it's another step in the rebranding of our conference and the reinvention of the American Athletic Conference," commissioner Mike Aresco said on a media conference call Thursday. "We think it's a bold, simple and elegant design that is aspirational in nature with the star. We think it's a unique design. … We think it captures our vision, our identity."

Aresco said he has been pleased with the response to the conference's new name and the public seems to be embracing "The American" as shorthand. The next stage of the rebranding involves the visual and digital, with the logo's release and the launch of the conference's website (http://www.TheAmerican.org). A basic version of the site is live, but the full site won't debut until the name change July 1.

The American will feature UConn, Cincinnati and South Florida as full holdovers from the Big East. Louisville and Rutgers will be members for one year, joined by Temple, Houston, Memphis, SMU and Central Florida for 2014-15. East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa join in 2014, with Navy arriving as a football member in 2015.

Aresco said Thursday that the league will remain as a core NCAA conference, retaining an automatic bid to the NCAA basketball tournaments. The new Big East, which comprises the seven non-football members of the old conference, will also have an automatic bid.

Asked about The American's search for postseason basketball tournament sites, Aresco said a decision could come within two weeks. Conference administrators are focused on the Mohegan Sun Arena for the women's tournament and FedExForum in Memphis for the men's, but Aresco said last week that the league is keeping multiple options available for negotiating purposes.

The league will sign for just one year with a venue. Conference officials have been in contact with Hartford's XL Center — which bid for both tournaments — and gave no indication that a final decision has been made or that the building is not under consideration.

"We're getting much closer, we're narrowing it down to our final choices, both men's and women's," Aresco said. "There's always some last-minute machinations as you try to figure out what venue would be best for you and we're in that process now."

Aresco also said the conference is "pretty far along' in creating its own bowl, with the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area a likely site. He also said the conference is looking to secure contractual tie-ins to existing bowls and that The American could have as many as nine bowl deals.